Old Knives and Memories

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BKWhite
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Old Knives and Memories

Post by BKWhite »

As I browse through various sites looking at the old knives for sale or see pictures of private collections I remember back to a time when some of these old models were still new sitting in the display cases at our local hardware store. I think back to the first knife that my grandfather gave me. A Case xx single blade slimline only to loose through a hole in my pocket and having to explain what had happened when asked where my knife was.

I have memories of the knives that I had bought with money earned working odd jobs during the summer months only to trade them off later to friends for something they had that I liked better at the time or one left on the creek bank at gh our favorite fishing hole. To my teenage years when knives seemed to disappear and I just plain did not know where they went.

If I had known then what I know now my collection would be a lot bigger with some fine old knives. Thanks for listening to what my children would say are just ramblings of an old man but I consider them as memories of what seemed to be a simpler time when a good knife and a day in which to use it was all that seem to matter.

Have any of your had knives in the past that you wished you had back? Do you remember your first knife? Have a great day
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by timgreene48 »

BK, like you, my first knife was given to me by my grandfather. It was a large buck 3 blade folding knife. I still can hear him saying "now timmy, don't you lose that knife", but again, like you, I lost it within a week! Grandpa was a bit disapointed in me, needless to say. Man, I sure would love to have that one back! Tim
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philco
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by philco »

I'm not entirely sure what my first knife was. My brother says he thinks it was a Cub Scout knife. Whatever it was, it's long gone now but I've got a bunch more taking its place.
When I was in my early 20s there was a local hardware store that stocked Case knives. Whenever I managed to get a few extra bucks I'd go in there and buy a knife from them to put back. I've still got em all in my collection to this day.

I've carried a pocket knife since I was in the third grade. I've still got a Camillus electricians knife I got from my dad and made my EDC. I started collecting knives when I was 12 years old. That was 47 years ago. I had an uncle who collected knives and guns and I think that had a big influence on my knife (and gun) collecting ways.

One of the lines in my signature kinda says it all for me.
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djknife13
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by djknife13 »

When I was about 10 or 11, I was in Loydens Army Surplus store with my Dad. Dad was talking to old man Loyden and I was drooling over a small Western kids hunting knife (L28) that was eye level to me in a display case. Dad had 7 kids he was feeding working for a small town grocery store as a meat cutter. He knew where every nickel was going from his meager weekly check. I sure wanted that knife and figured it was worth a shot but didn't figure I had a chance in heck I'd get it. I asked Dad if he'd buy it for me. He looked down at it and said OK. I was so stunned I can still feel the excitement some 56 years later. Dad is gone now but that knife is secure in my safe along with Dad's old Remington hunting knife He bought after he got out of the Army Air Corp after WW2 and the Kinfolks hunting knife my older brother (also passed away) gave me as a Christmas present in 1960.
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by philco »

That's what I'm talkin' about. ::tu::
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royal0014
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by royal0014 »

I don't remember my Dad ever totin' a knife of any kind. Being a 'mechanic' he usually had a tiny pair of ignition pliers in his pocket. 30+ years working with sheetmetal, he always had a scribe in his breast pocket.

No, my first knife was purchased by my grandmother, after much begging from me. It was one of the cheap barlows from a counter-top display card, maybe $3 in the early 80's. I remember my Mother was not happy, but she didn't take it away. The knife is long since gone, but I have a couple in my pile like it, just because :)
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carrmillus
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by carrmillus »

......my first one was a Camillus cub scout knife, bought for me by my mother in 1944(my grandpa had told her to make sure it was a Camillus)......sure wish I still had it!!............... ::tu:: ..................
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by RobesonsRme.com »

I do not recall my first knife. It might have been a single blade cracked ice jack I got from The Cub Scouts as a premium for having done something, but I cannot recall what. I know I cut the living daylights out of the little finger of my right hand when I stabbed an "Indian" lying on the playground at Robinson school. It was not a lockback.

I must have bought a half dozen different knives with my lawn cutting money when I was a pre-teen and a teenager. I bought imitation pearl melon knives, multiple Imperial and Colonial switchblades, hawkbills, etc.

One by one, my Dad discovered I had them, confiscated them, put them away somewhere in the deeper reaches of his and Mom's bedroom and assured me that I could have them all back one day when I was "older"'

Well, I'm almost sixty-eight and I haven't laid an eye on any of those knives since laying them in Dad's outstretched hand.

He passed away in 1979, taking the knowledge of their whereabouts with him.

Mom passed away in 1988 and a thorough search of the house, the same house in which I grew up, turned up no knives.

A liquidating estate sale did not uncover them either.

He must have sold them, given them away or tossed them.

But I fooled him, Buddy. I have about three hundred fifty of them suckers now. ::ds::

Among them is a Case XX 6250 Toenail with the most beautiful mottled brown/green/white bone you have ever seen that he bought for me for $12.00 at a gun show when I was fourteen.

My most highly prized knife. ::tu::

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Mumbleypeg
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by Mumbleypeg »

My first pocket knife was a small two-blade Case jack (probably a 6227) that I bought when I was in 4th or 5th grade. I remember being at the store where I bought it, and I chose it because it was the least expensive one they had in stock (the only one I could afford). Like others have said I wish I still had it. Didn't have it long before I lost it to a 6th grader on the school playground in a game of mumbleypeg. ::facepalm:: As soon as I saved enough money I bought a small two-blade Ulster pen (or was it a jack?). My buddies and I speculated at the time that since it was stamped "Ulster" it must have been made in Ireland. :lol: Carried it a couple of years but eventually lost it at a scout camp out. ::teary_eyes::

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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by stagman »

For all the oldtimers out there, remember when back in late 1950's early 60's
you could get with them outfits and go door to door selling Christmas cards
and all occasion cards, sell like 12-24 boxes and pick out something on their prize sheet ???
I sold 24 boxes and got a Western knife / hatchet combo all in one sheath..
that was my 2nd knife I cherished, 1st was a old Marble's Ideal, well used, but with alot
of life left in it given to me by my Uncle Al...
Thought I was the baddest thing on 2 legs with them outfits strapped onto my belt
headin out for excursions down to the creek, as us kids called it, wow, long time ago
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by gmusic »

BKWhite, great story to start off this great thread.

Great stories............You guys have all experience that feeling when you got that first knife that made you go........WOW! It may not have been your very first knife, but there was a first.

Mine was when my mother opened up this cigar box of pocket knives, I must have been 8 or 9. I gazed in at maybe 10 or 12 knives (that were of course all foreign to me) and this one stood out among them all. It was Red! No doubt celluloid and shaped like a fish tail. I opened the thing up and it had this one weird blade with all of these bumps in it, but the other one was sharp and pointy........loved it! Don't know where that knife is today........but I can see it in my minds eye as plain as day!
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by fergusontd »

:D My first was a Barlow my dad bought for me at the drugstore, I was 6 at the time . I believe it was an Imperial, It had a wooden handle. That knife was lost years ago.but I still remember it well! ford
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by RobesonsRme.com »

Thinking about lost knives, I had a bone handled Case XX 048 two blade slim trapper that was virtually unused.

I know perfectly well I still had it when we moved into this house in October, 1979.

I'm pretty sure it was in an AMT model car box, along with a partially completed 1939 Ford two door sedan or it was somewhere in my roll-top desk.

I had three or four old model cars that had won local contests.

The 048 disappeared first. I have no idea where it went. I never carried it. It was one of the several knives Dad had bought for me when we were working gun shows.

I suspect my two boys might have taken it out in the back yard and lost it in the ivy of the rock garden. I keep expecting to find it lying out there someday, rusted away to nothing.

They both deny having done that, even now at thirty-six and thirty-nine years of age. They've always been honest with me, I think, so I have no idea.

Maybe one day, it will turn up here in the house.

Oh, and those model cars disappeared too. I'm pretty sure Sarah was the culprit in that, although probably unintentional. I think they just went out to The Salvation Army truck along with a bunch of other stuff.

Those were nicely done and very detailed models, too.

I wish they were still here, but I'd really like to have that old clotted-blood red 048 Case back.

Sigh........................................................ ::facepalm::

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Joe58
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by Joe58 »

One of my favorite things was going with Dad to the hardware store, or gun shop, and looking at the knife display cases. I thought that was the coolest thing. Every time I'd have a new favorite I'd want to be asking for at Christmas. Those were the days right? I know times are always marching on, but sometimes I do wish for going back to a bit simpler time. Oh well.
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by Jacknifeben »

Back in 1975 I was in Burlington and stopped to see my grand parents on my Mom's side. My grandpa CURT was sitting on the davenport with a card board box between his feet. I said what is in the box and he said he had just got back from an auction so I dug around the box and pulled out a 6275 Case knife. I said what do you want for this knife and he said what will you give me for it. Jokingly I said one dollar and he said sold, that is what I paid for the whole box.
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by timgreene48 »

Thats a heck of a knife for a dollar!! ::woot::
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by wlf »

Daddy gave me an Imperial(I think) fish knife when I was about 4 or 5 years old.An older boy begged it from me,pretty sure the same day I got it, at a pay lake while we were fishing,that's how young and naive I was.He then gave me a barlow a little later.

Daddy was a son's and all his nephew's buddy.We went fishing ,hunting,played horseshoes,marbles,cards,bowled continually.I was packing a gun in the woods when I was about 8,shooting before that.Fishing from about 3 or 4 on. He did make safety a priority,as far as handling a gun,other hunters,and always unloading your gun completely before coming out of the woods.

When I was 12 ,I got into a fight with a 15 year old who had a large ring on. He cut my eye and bloodied my nose,had blood all over my shirt. Even so, I was backing him up when the gym teacher picked me up. Daddy didn't like the sight of me and after I told him the details,especially the ring part,he asked if I needed another knife.He loved his family and has backed down State police,him at 5' 8". I told Daddy I didn't need one,that I could take care of it,that I thought I could take the guy given a little more time.

You didn't mess with his kids ,that was dangerous.

I don't have any of the early knives Dad got me,but I do have the folding hunter he used to skin game. It's not much now,after Papaw Fry borrowed it to cut hogs. He sharpened it vigorously with a good file. Daddy told me that was the last time he would borrow it,but it was to late.

I still treasure it though.
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by bestgear »

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was 1964 and I had just earned my Cub Scout Whittling Chip and my father who was our Cubmaster took me to Amato's Toy & Hobby store in downtown New Britain Connecticut to purchase a brand new blue Camillus Official Cub Scout knife. I still treasure that knife today and have never gone a day without having a pocketknife in my left front pocket. Something clicked that day and rather than collect Scouting patches or neckerchiefs I always traded for knives. As hard as it may be to comprehend, On My Honor I have never lost a knife; probably because I safeguard them like gold.

But more than the knives are the memories of the friends I made along the way. I wish I had kept a journal to chronicle the great people I have met along the way but I didn't so all I have are the memories and the knives. I've worked hard with both of my sons to transfer my lessons-learned so hopefully they will get to this point in their journey and have more than just memories. One thing is for sure, they will have one hell of a knife collection to divy-up!
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carrmillus
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by carrmillus »

...my first knife was a Camillus cub scout, bought in 1944 or '45. my mother took me with her to hind's bros. in tupelo to buy it. my grandpa told her to make sure it was a Camillus!! I dropped it over the side of the boat in the '60's in grandpa's lake. sometime in the '80's, the dam broke and after it dried up, I spent 2 days looking for it, but never found it!!.......would give anything now to have it back!!!....... ::tu:: ..............
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Re: Old Knives and Memories

Post by Bamarick »

My first knife was a Case XX 3254 Trapper given to me by an uncle. It was followed closely by a Queen #39 Folding Hunter in Winterbottom Bone. I still have the Queen but I have no clue what happened to the Case Trapper. I was about 8 years old when I got it and my mom was not too keen on me having it so she might have relieved me of it. I don't think she ever knew about the Queen or it would have probably been long gone as well. That would have been in 1963 or so and that first Case did it for me. I was hooked then and still am. I didn't have a clue back then about knives, their patterns, handle materials, or what would eventually be called knife collecting. Several years later I met Jim Sargent and he and I became good friends. If I wasn't already hooked I didn't stand a chance after meeting him. He shared his knowledge freely and always had time to spend with me. As a result, I've been able to handle literally thousands of knives over the years and I've learned a lot because of this. Now I do my best to share what I've learned with others. Hopefully someone else will come along and do the same after I'm gone.

Rick
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